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Providing an effective defense for individuals charged with capital crimes requires a diligent, thorough investigation by a mitigation specialist. However, research suggests that mitigation often plays a small role in the decision for life. Jurors often make sentencing decisions prematurely, basing those decisions on their personal reactions to the defendant (for example, fear, anger), their confusion about the rules of law, and their lack of understanding regarding their role and responsibilities. This article proposes an evidence-based conceptual model of the complicating problems surrounding mitigation practice and a focused discussion about how traditional social work mitigation strategies might be evolved to a set of best practices that more effectively ensure jurors' careful consideration of mitigation evidence.

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This article uses the case study method to examine the lives of three youths with disabilities living in the southern part of the United States who have followed a pathway to death row. An empirically established developmental and theoretical framework is used to examine issues related to the in¯uence of disabilities and race on children and youths, and their pathway to delinquency and crime. Through criminological life-history research methods, the study demonstrates the path taken by three youths with disabilities and showcases how the analysis of information gleaned from these life stories creates new narratives about pathways to death row. Moreover, the presentation of these narratives to legislators and policy-makers has in¯uenced reform in the American juvenile justice system.The combined use of life-history research and social work advocacy provides a more effective and successful method by which to request and secure the resources necessary for intervening in the youth pathway to death row. Finally, this collaborative research effort has resulted in the passage of legislative acts that have created early intervention truancy prevention centersÐcenters based on the stories about these three young men in their elementary school years.

The death penalty remains alive and well in the United States. Courts in 37 states try defendants who are oftentimes mentally retarded, mentally ill, or suffer from neurological disorders. Social workers are using their skills and expertise to lead mitigation investigations where disability, discrimination, and deprivation in defendant's lives are being woven into the fabric of the penalty phase process. Mitigation investigations yield information about a defendant's life that is then empirically linked with factors identified in the social science literature and presented to juries to guide their focus in making sentencing decisions. Advanced clinical skills and an ecological theoretical approach to interpreting the biopsychosocial realities of the defendant's life are proving to be vital components of capital litigation.